Page 79 of Love Scenes

While Calvin talks to Stuart, Elise hides, watching. When Stuart leaves, she emerges in her slip once more.

“I didn’t get dressed,” she says, walking up to Calvin. Scared and shy.

He asks why.

“Because I wanted you to see me.”

“Please,” he says. “Can I touch you?”

She nods. Calvin reaches his hand out to slide the slip off Elise’s shoulders. “Don’t you know it’s always been you? I love you, Elise.” He works from her arm up to her mouth, their lipsfinally pressing together into the kiss that sets off the sex scene we filmed yesterday.

We shoot everythingup to the climactic kiss. Lucas is here, his last day on this job. Between shots, we film a few behind-the-scenes things together, which is funny because I truly barely know him, other than the woodworking thing. A stark contrast to everyone else in this cast, who is either my family. Or Joe.

Lucas has Stuart’s dark desperation nailed. Joe captures a tenderness in Calvin, the way he takes down Stuart to assure Elise she is safe here. It’s not done with the machismo I expected. That’s Tyler’s touch. She brings a different edge, urging them to do away with the chest puffing. Play it with the love, not the anger, she tells them more than once.

After that coverage is done, Lucas sticks around to watch the rest of the scene. Powell’s stopped by, sitting beside Mom, the two of them with their heads constantly pressed together, whispering what I assure myself is praise for my stunning performance.

We pick up at the moment before Calvin eases down the strap of Elise’s slip. The coverage is on me first, but Joseph gives me everything he has, down to the soft, eager eyes I know well, a storm of desire building behind them.

“Please. Can I touch you?”he asks.

I nod.

He steps closer. His thumb brushes the strap of my slip until it falls off my shoulder.

“Don’t you know it’s always been you?”He presses his lips to the skin where the strap once was. “I love you, Sloane.”

He continues kissing my shoulder—myshoulder—waiting asif it were me making the mistake here, forgetting the next beat. I’m supposed to stroke his cheek.

I am frozen. He has said my name, not Elise’s, and he hasn’t even realized.

The crew knows. My mother knows.

I try not to look at anyone. Not to move. Not to breathe.

“Uh, cut,” Tyler interjects, lobbing it toward Joseph like it will wake him up. He pulls back and shakes off the moment, prepared to get notes and deliver a better performance in the next take.

Tyler gives me a helpless, shocked look that I pointedly avoid.

Finally, in this excruciating, infinite stretch of uncertainty, Joseph realizes. He says, “Oh, my bad,” blushing, creating a sizable distance between us. More than is necessary. He knows no one is buying it. Not the behind-the-scenes guys. Not the entertainment correspondents. Not Lucas the woodworker.

This isn’t the kind of slipup that just happens. I know it isn’t because almost every movie I’ve done has had a love story. No other actor has ever said my name in these moments when they’ve meant to say my character’s. Every person on this lot has worked on one or a dozen or a hundred romances, and they’d all say this isn’t a thing. Not in this particular context.

I know it isn’t because of the way he’s looking at me.

Because all it takes between us is a look.

What I don’t know is what to do. How to sit inside the gravity of what seems to be a genuine admittance on his part. And a public one at that.

“Let’s take a five,” Tyler says.

The crew disbands, everyone acting like they have some small side job they need to doright now this very instant.Actingbeing the key word. Everyone that’s not a professional performer is putting on a show for the two people who are being paid to pretend.

The extra film crews, notably, keep rolling.

I tell myself not to storm off. Instead I remove my mic and say something about getting my phone from my trailer, even trying out a laugh with it. Oh-so-breezy Sloane Ford, known for being effortless and cool. With each step I take away from set, the tension builds. By the time I’m off the soundstage, I have to keel over, hands on my knees, nearly dry heaving. I’m barefoot, I realize with a distant amusement. And in a peach slip.

“Sloane! Sloane!” I hear, almost outside of myself. Joseph’s leading us to his trailer, always to his trailer, and I’m following, only because I don’t know where else to go.